A Savage Place
by Locrian-Mode
Summary: When trouble alights on a minor rescue mission, the crew is forced on a clumsy romp across the galaxy with some interesting new passengers, followed by a supremely heinous warship bent on their disappearance. Scotty-centric.
1. Harassing the Beast

**When trouble alights on a minor rescue mission, the crew is forced on a clumsy romp across the galaxy with some interesting new passengers, followed by a supremely heinous warship bent on their disappearance. Scotty-centric.**

**A/N: I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a trekkie. Can you really access magnetic constrictors by yanking them out of the inside chamber? Can you see the ramscoops from the VIP bridge? Can a planet really be Class H with a Class M atmosphere? Who knows?! Not me! If you **_**are**_** a trekkie and want to point out my errors, go ahead, I like input. **

**Don't own anything from the Star Trek universe.**

**Rated for future possibilities. This might get bloody, but it probably won't get very steamy. **

**-----O}{O-----**

**A Savage Place**

**Ch. 1**

Scotty winced, and involuntarily drew his hand from the insides of a jungle of wires and circuits. He plunged it straight back in, knowing full well that he was going to get shocked again. The magnetic constrictor seemed to be bent on ruining Scotty's good reputation, as he'd been puttering with it for the past three hours and still hadn't finished. This was okay; he'd told Kirk it would take five hours, at most.

"Alright, ye big bempot, I'm done haverin' aroond with ye," he muttered affectionately, and yanked the entire upper board off the inside chamber. "Keenser, would ya get me one 'o those giant body bolts an' a grip lock, please?" His assistant rummaged for a moment before handing over the requested equipment with, Scotty noticed, not a small amount of cynicism etched on his face. Keenser's face was not an easy thing to read, but spending six months alone with the little creature had forced Scotty to become proficient in face-reading.

"What?" he grumped. Keenser feigned innocence, shrugging. "Ye think I'm goin' overboard?" he asked, only half-serious. Keenser rolled his eyes. "Right then, ya wee dunt, keep yer sub-chief opinions to yerself. Get me that welder torch, please."

Keenser snorted. It was an amused snort, though, not a mocking snort. Scotty had also learned to trust the snorts of his assistant. Keenser was smart. It had taken him a while to figure that out, but the wrinkly alien hadn't made it easy - always climbing about on the infrastructure and snorting and staring.

The welder torch appeared by his side, and he pulled on his helmet and one glove.

"Right. If this doesn't do it, I'm loosin' me touch..." He positioned the torch and switched it on. Flying sparks immediately lit up the inside chamber of the nacelle they were in, something that was duly noted by an occupant of the VIP lounge, who watched through the window…

**-----O}{O-----**

"Heavens, what's he _doing_ in there, Jim?"

"Hell if I know." Jim Kirk was concentrating on a project of his own, and wasn't about to be distracted. He held his breath and carefully maneuvered the next card into place. Backing away, he allowed himself to breathe, proudly admiring his creation. His friend sighed.

"Jim, I think you're obsessed. In my opinion-"

"Your medical opinion?"

"Yes, in my medical opinion, I'd say you've got a problem. Just accept the fact that an engineer's gonna be better at making card castles than you are, alright? That's what Scotty _does_, he _tinkers _with stuff like that. He knows how to manipulate the laws of physics. You can spend all the time you want trying to make a better castle but I assure you, you'd be better off using your time elsewhere." Bones gave the card castle on the table a once-over. "I'd have to say, though, that's your best yet."

"Of course it is. I used a deck and a half. Look, it's got turrets. I've never seen Scotty use turrets."

"Yeah… he uses keeps and baileys and galleries instead. Your turrets sure put them to shame."

"I don't need your sarcasm," Kirk stated, and took up another card. "You're squashing my muse. What's a bailey?"

"Perhaps you should use your spare time reading up on architectural terms before you go around challenging the chief engineer to card castle competitions."

"Your constant stream of stinging remarks is going to blow my castle down. Shhh." Kirk may not know what a bailey was, (or, admittedly, a gallery), but he was bent on using up the second half of the second deck of cards. Ideally, he'd be able to use a third deck, but his castles usually collapsed before he got to that point. But today, it might happen. Today he was taking his time. He had two more hours before Scotty would be done fussing with the warp core, or whatever he was doing, and by that point he hoped to have this castle done.

Kirk's concentration was broken by the sound of the monitor screen flashing to life, Uhura's voice coming out of the speaker.

"Captain, I'm picking up a distress signal from the rocky planetoid we've had to starboard. It's weak but it appears to be fresh." Kirk sighed, abandoning his project.

"I'm coming to the bridge," he said, and started over, McCoy in tow.

"That's not a federation planet, is it?" asked the doctor.

"No, it's not even named yet. We don't know what class it is. Chekov," he said into his radio, "how far are we from the nearest starbase?"

_"Eleven-point-seven-zero-eight lightyears, Keptin,"_ came the ensign's voice. Kirk thanked him, and momentarily had burst into the bridge and taken up position in The Chair. Uhura brought up visuals of the planet, the sound of the signal ticking away from her computer.

"That is one god-forsaken little piece of rock," murmured Kirk. The planetoid was barely symmetrical, colored a drab grey-brown and sporting a fair amount of pockmarks. "Huh. That's weird. Spock?"

"It appears to be a Class H planet, habitable, with a Class M atmosphere of slightly high levels of oxygen," replied the Vulcan.

"Good. Any signs of life picked up on that thing?"

"Yes. There are three crude structures gathered near a small ship that appears to be Orion in origin."

"_Orion?"_ groaned Kirk and Uhura. "Man, that's awkward. Uhura, the signal's not Orion, is it?"

"No, it's unidentified."

"Well, crew, looks like our green-skinned friends are getting into some shenanigans. Let's go bust up the party." Sulu swiveled in his chair, and gave Kirk a confused look, much like Chekov was.

"Wait, _what's_ going on?"

"Orions," started Kirk, "as you know, are non-Federation, highly dubious green-skinned beings. They're the Galaxy's black-market, not that official records would tell you so. On record, they're neutral; they don't want to join the Federation and have to act all ethically, but they don't want to be on our bad side, because they know we'd kick their asses. They like to conduct decidedly fishy business out in non-Federation-explored areas. They're big into the slave trade; I'm guessing that's what we've run into. A little temporary base for their transactions. We're gonna go down there and bust things up."

Spock raised an eyebrow, but kept his mouth shut. He was quickly learning to translate the Captain's slang.

"Which brings us," Kirk continued, "to the landing party. Bones, you're coming. Spock, you're immune to female Orion pheremones, you're in too. So are you, Uhura, and we might need your language skills, we don't know who they're keeping down there. And I have, ah, experience with female Orions. Scotty!" he yelled into his radio, before Bones could make a snide remark. Unfortunately Scotty didn't reply.

"_Experience_, Jim?" asked the doctor. Uhura's smile was a bit twisted as she swiveled in her chair to face McCoy.

"Yes, my roommate back at the Acadamy was Orion. Remember Gaila?" McCoy rolled his eyes, an _I knew it_ plastered across his face, and Spock's eyebrow advanced even further up his forehead.

"Mister Scott!" Kirk tried again, with determination.

"_Yes, Captain?"_

"How's your, uh, project going?"

_"Just finished, Captain. Sorry I didn't reply ta your first call, me hands were full of ship guts. Constrictor's good as new, we can warp 8 without it rattlin' aroond."_

"Great. Good job. Good timing. We just got a distress signal from a rocky planetoid we're approaching. We figure there's an Orion slave business base down there. Bones, Uhura, Spock and myself are going down there. You're the commanding officer. We'll be in transporter room 1 in fifteen."

_"Right, Captain."_

**-----O}{O-----**

Scotty was in the transporter room in eight minutes, having joyfully abandoned the mess that the nacelle had accumulated during its repair. He proceeded to check the connections, drives, nuts, bolts, vents, and light fixtures until the landing party arrived. Transporting people was something he usually looked forward to, mostly because it actually involved human contact, which was something that his job didn't call for all that much. Unfortunately, having acquired the position of chief engineer meant that he was now spending the majority of his work doing all the delicate stuff deep inside the ship, and the task of transporting people had been passed on to one of his personnel.

Fortunately, McCoy was just paranoid enough about transporters that whenever he had to beam somewhere, he would put up a fuss if anyone but Scotty was at the controls.

"Alright, Scotty. Chekov says we're good to go. See if you can beam us down to just behind that big bouldery thing," Kirk said, pointing at the zoomed-in chart on Scotty's screen. "We could be seconds, could be hours."

"Right, Captain."

"Okay, folks, let's go." The four of them stepped onto the platform, and, McCoy looking a wee bit antsy, stood at the ready.

"Good luck," Scotty called, and activated the pads. Kirk gave a limp salute before disappearing in a flamboyant swirl of blue, along with the other three. A second later, they established radio contact.

"Chekov, ye got them on screen?" Scotty asked the intership radio.

_"Aye, sir."_

Well, that had gone uneventfully, as usual. Scotty took the opportunity to pull out some engineering magazines. He'd fallen behind on reading them since the beginning of this particular mission. You'd think sailing over to the Hromi Cluster would be about as boring as watching paint peel, but he'd managed to be kept quite busy. While nothing of interest had happened outside of the ship, the Enterprise seemed to have taken on the hobby of playing practical jokes on her chief engineer.

In the back of his mind, he worried a bit about his fellow officers down on the surface of the planet. The Orions down there would probably bitterly 'agree' to break up their operation after Kirk had told them off, and the officers would come back aboard, perhaps with a few newly-freed people in tow, depending on what was really going on down there. Busting up Orion operations was somewhat of a ho-hum occurrence for some of the older crews out there. Sulu and Chekov, up on the bridge, were giving him updates on what the monitors were telling them, and nothing had gone astray as of yet.

But still – anything could happen in space, however much he hated to admit it.

**-----O}{O----- **

**A/N… which will, sadly, be verified in the next chapter.**


	2. Hoopla and Such

**Ch.2**

**-----}O{-----**

"Whoof, Spock, you could have warned me it was going to be this hot down here," Kirk gasped as the party rematerialized on the surface of the planet. The warmth beat down on them in dry waves; Kirk fancied he could already feel his eyeballs drying out. "If I'd known it'd be like this I would have worn shorts…"

"Spock, my friend, I just felt a rare wave of gratitude for you," stated McCoy, staring around suspiciously.

"Me too," said Uhura.

"You guys don't know how to appreciate good things when they come knocking," declared Kirk, as he checked the radio signal back to the Enterprise. "Alright. So we're gonna go around this big boulder and there's three buildings over there. Hopefully the Orions will be smart enough not to fire; best case scenario, they clear out peacefully. McCoy, you and I are going to not let ourselves be affected by those female pheromones."

"Captain," said Spock, "I'm not sure that a simple preemptive mindset will be affective against such potent chemicals."

"Affective, maybe not, but it's better than going in there completely unprepared. Just in case, if we encounter any females, you and Uhura will deal with them, McCoy and I will hang back. We're going in defensive." With that, he led the way around the rocky protrusion.

The buildings that came into sight were alarmingly nondescript. Simple to the extreme, they were obviously made for packing up and scramming at the drop of a pin. Or the drop of a Starfleet crew, as it were. Kirk couldn't see anybody outside the buildings, not that he'd expected to, in these temperatures. He wondered, as he noticed that twilight appeared to be creeping towards them over some shallow mountains in the distance, if it would cool down any once night had fallen. He could only hope; the heat was coming up through the rock and turning his shoes into veritable ovens.

They were mere meters away from checking out the first building when a green head popped out from behind a door, stuck on a green neck, which topped a most voluptuous green torso that was minimally clad in –

"AAaah, haha," he said, taking a rapid step back, catching himself.

"Something wrong?" asked the she-Orion innocently.

"May I, Captain?" Spock said, stepping forward in Kirk's place. The Captain gratefully waved him forward, and stood by McCoy. The doctor was carefully averting his eyes.

"Greetings," began Spock. The Orion watched him expectantly. "We come to respectfully inquire as to your business on this planetoid. We have reason to believe an operation of dubious purpose may be taking place here."

_Oh geez_, thought Kirk. He doubted courtesy was going to get them anywhere. Maybe he should have had Uhura deal with the Orion. He watched the green female size up Spock, her eyes lingering on his ears. Kirk smirked.

"Are you accusing us of illicit conduct?" she asked incredulously, which made her sound completely inane, as 'illicit conduct' was precisely what Orions were known for.

"That would be correct, miss. If you've nothing to declare, we'd like to have a look around."

"Well, I _do _have something to declare, actually." She slipped out from behind the door, revealing her entire minimally-clad self; McCoy and Kirk backed up as nonchalantly as they could. Uhura stepped forward, blocking the Orion's further advance, a no-nonsense look on her face.

"Don't even try it," she snapped. "What are you declaring?" The Orion gave Uhura a look that probably would have killed part of Kirk's soul.

"Cool down, cool down. I was going to say; we've got precisely nothing illicit going on. We were on our way to Rigel, our ship needed some repairs, we landed here for a few days. And by the way, I find it offensive that you _assume_ we've got some shady business going on down here."

"We're very sorry that we offended you, miss," said Spock sincerely. "Would you mind if we take a look around?" he asked, completely shattering the authenticity of his last statement. Spock did, in fact, have a sense of humor. Kirk was learning to appreciate the subtleties of it.

The Orion paused at this, staring at Spock's ears once again, then giving them all a kind of poisonous look of poorly disguised _I'm measuring you up to see how easy it will be to kill you all_.

"I'll let you talk to my… husband," she said, glancing behind her to the doorway, where a large, green monster had materialized from the shadows. Kirk, relieved to be dealing with a male, spoke up from behind Uhura.

"We have reason to believe you're conducting illicit business here. Why don't you just let us take a look around? If we don't find anything we'll leave you guys in peace. If you are, though, you could make it easy on yourselves and tell us what's going on here."

"Nothing is going on here," the male grumbled, his deep voice echoing from his cavernous chest. Kirk sincerely hoped it wasn't going to come down to hand-to-hand combat. This guy could probably break Kirk's ribcage with his earlobe.

"In that case, we'll just check things out quick and then leave. Sound good?"

"Why don't you leave _now_ instead?"

"You're not making a case for yourself, buddy." Hand twitching in anticipation, Kirk let it float near his phaser. "We don't _want _to arrest you."

"Dear," said the female Orion, hanging on the hulk's arm, "let them look. We have nothing to hide." After a few tense moments of eyebrows narrowing into murderous slits, Kirk was relieved to see him nod in agreement.

"Alright," he said, rather louder than was probably necessary, "go ahead, look around. But I want you out of here in ten minutes, or I reserve the right to force you out."

"Fine. McCoy, Spock, check out this building, then go over to the little one. Uhura and I will cover the last building and the ship."

"You won't be entering the ship."

"Why not? Don't you have nothing to hide?"

"The ship is unstable. Nobody but our engineer is allowed on."

"We'll just look. No touching, okay?"

"The ship is off-limits!" Clearly, the big Orion had lost whatever cool he had had.

"Well, maybe your engineer would like to walk us through, just to set our minds at ease. Swear we won't touch anything."

"That would be fine. Let's walk them through," the green woman said, giving her man a pointed look. He managed to nod, although Kirk could see he was clearly ready to rip someone's thumbs off and stick them in their eye sockets. Managing to catch Spock's eye, Kirk nodded pointedly at the two Orions who had started off towards the ship. Spock caught the message and went up to start chatting amiably with the aliens, Uhura joining in. Kirk hung back to walk next to McCoy.

"Bones," he whispered, "I've got a plan."

"Great, we're doomed."

"We're gonna go in there, and assuming they don't jump us right away, I'm gonna distract them up front once we pass the cargo hold. You see if you can get into the cargo hold. That _must_ be where they're keeping the slaves."

"You _may _be getting a bit ahead of yourself…"

"By then I'm guessing the Orions will have noticed your absence. We'll tell them we're confiscating their slaves, join you in the cargo hold, then we'll contact the Enterprise and beam up. We don't really want to arrest them."

"Jim, you're insane. Do you know what the chances are that this'll work?"

"Got a better plan?" Kirk loved being able to say that. They _never_ had a better plan. McCoy, looking doubtful, nodded. Spock and Uhura were busy keeping up a lively discussion with the Orions about the viability of what was apparently wrong with the ship's impulse drive. The Orions halted conversation once they'd entered the ship, and their walking pace picked up considerably. Kirk made his way up to the front, giving McCoy a reassuring look.

**-----}O{-----**

Bones returned Kirk's look with his best glare. The Captain was obviously out of his mind, if he thought this was going to work. Kirk was assuming that the Orions wouldn't kill them, but McCoy was fairly certain that taking a more cautious approach may have been a better idea. Knowing his luck, these Orions probably _were _innocent. They were probably keeping extra pairs of skimpy clothing in the cargo bay, next to canned pickled onions and other such trivial objects. The distress signal that Uhura hadn't been able to identify was more than likely a weird little frequency that was being given off by this malfunctioning ship. Jim was just getting excited. He wanted some adventure.

Fortunately or not, he wasn't given very much time to feel grumpy about the situation, as presently they passed a large door that read 'Cargo Hold'. There was a corner ahead of them, and the second the two Orions rounded it, Bones could hear Kirk start to yammer about how this ceiling panel looked suspicious, what's up there, anyways?

The party successfully jammed around a corner, Spock and Uhura giving Bones fleeting glances, he backtracked to the cargo hold and, taking a deep breath meant to calm his nerves (subsequently failing), he pushed the button to open.

Having expected it to be locked, he was a bit shocked when it slid easily open. Having a male Orion staring him in the face on the other side of the door was also a bit of a jolt.

His arm drew back and his fist hammered the alien across the jaw. Catching on to what his body had decided to do, he threw another punch, and the Orion teetered unsteadily before falling. He'd have to reflect on the chances of that actually working for anyone other than Jim later on. The gun came easily out of the Orion's limp grip, and after closing the door behind him, he turned around.

"Oh my."

So maybe Jim was right, now and again, about these things.

There were people. About a dozen of them, he supposed. About half of them looked like kids, and the other half were so strange-looking that he couldn't tell either way. He didn't recognize the species of any of them. They were clearly frightened, backing away and staring.

"We're here to save you," he said lamely, holding his hands out, palms up, in a calming manner. "We're going to beam you back aboard our ship, where you'll be safe. Do you understand?"

They stared.

"Do any of you understand me? We need to go." _We need to go_, he said in his head again, realizing that about now would be a good time to contact Scotty. He raised the radio to his lips, pressed call.

"Mister Scott, are you there?" There was only a slight pause before the reply came.

_"Yes, doctor."_

"Be ready to beam us up. We've got about a dozen extras coming back up-" The sound of raised, alarmed voices echoed through the walls into the cargo bay. They'd been found out. Kirk would be telling them to surrender their cargo about now.

A phaser blast made McCoy's blood pressure jump. That wasn't supposed to happen. That also hadn't been a phaser set to stun; the Orions were aiming to kill.

"Dammit. Ok, kids, gather 'round, time to go."

**-----}O{-----**

_"Scott! Got about six here ready to go, beam 'em up!"_

"Got it, doctor." McCoy's first transmission to Scotty had ripped him from a quite interesting article about a new transwarp theory, but as the sound of the phasers came back to him via the doctor's radio, Scotty's mind had all but forgotten the magazine. His fingers fairly flew across the screen, found the six targets, and started the transport sequence. One second later, six smallish beings rematerialized on the pads. He couldn't afford a glance in their direction.

"Off the pads, please," he barked at them, hoping they understood him. A few moved off, the others following. Scotty was already trying to lock on to the next group as McCoy's radio shrieked at his side.

_"They're in the cargo bay! They're firing at us, Scotty, get us out!" _He could hear more shots being fired, and quite a few high-pitched yells.

"There are too many transmissions, I cannae tell which one of you is who, hold still!" he said helplessly into the radio.

_"Just get us out!" _Hoping he hadn't picked up an enemy, Scotty locked onto six more signals, started the transport sequence –

The room shook and a blast assaulted his ears – a knot of dread appeared in his ribcage – the new arrivals shaken off their feet and Scotty barely managing to keep his hands on the control panel. Alarms started shrieking, Chekov's voice yelling incomprehensibly over the intercom, the sound of McCoy's radio cut off sharply, a horrible, sinking feeling welling up in his chest –

The static sounds of a failed transportation, the worst sound in the universe. The collective gasp of the kids huddled against the wall as they saw what had appeared on the transport pads, _NO,_ thought Scotty. But he had mere seconds, and he had to be sure. He raised his eyes, but stopped before they came into focus. Sidevision told him all he needed to know.

"Memory files, memory files…" he mumbled feverishly, forcing his brain to remember where they were stored.

_"Scotty! Meestir Scott! Come in!"_ He finally registered what Chekov had been shouting.

"What!" he yelled, not taking his fingers or eyes off the screen.

_"We are being hailed! You are the commanding officer!"_ The fact that they'd just been fired upon by another vessel, and that that vessel was now asking to speak with the commanding officer, dawned upon Scotty and he found that he couldn't possibly care less.

"Did you put the shields up?" he asked weakly, finally finding the correct command to fix what had happened on the transporter pads. God help him but he thought he could hear one of them moaning.

_"Yes, of course-"_

"Take them down."

_"But-"_

"I need to operate the transports, take them down!"

_"Yes sir. Sir, you'd better get up here quick, they're…" _Chekov's voice faded from Scotty's attention. All he cared about was confirming the '_access memory file and transport'_ command. And he did. The sound of the transport filled the room, the things on the pads disappeared, and he sat helplessly, fingers clenched around the radio.

The radio fizzed to life. He jammed his finger at the call button.

"McCoy! Hello, are you alright?" He released the button, feeling numb, still not hearing Chekov's voice coming to him urgently over the intercom. McCoy's radio had reassembled, where was McCoy?

"McCoy!" he tried again, anxiety making his voice crack. And then, from the radio,

_"… Holy shit, man-" _

"Are ye alright? Are ye whole?"

_"Yeah…" _Relief flooded his system and allowed his ears to tune in to other things besides his radio, namely the intercom, where Chekov was barely keeping himself from panicking.

_"… fire again. I repeat, come to ze bridge asip, Meestir Scott, zey are getting ready to hit us again-"_

"Shields up, Chekov!" Scotty yelled. "I'll be there in a second!" He interrupted the disbelieving mutterings of McCoy and the chaotic background noise that came with it as he sprung to his feet and made for the bridge. "McCoy, I cannae beam ye up now. There's somethin' wrong with the transporter and we're bein' hailed by a hostile vessel that's firin' at us. Can ye hold yer ground?"

_"Guess we'll have to."_

**-----}O{-----**


	3. Foisting

**Ch.3**

**-----}{-----**

This was all, of course, a dream. They'd never actually gotten a distress signal, so they'd never stopped by this forsaken hunk of burning rock. The transporter hadn't malfunctioned, Kirk and Spock and McCoy _weren't_ stuck down there getting fired at by Orions, and there most certainly was not a mysterious vessel firing upon them.

_Right_, Scotty thought, _now I just need ta wake up. Aaaaanytime. Like _now.

He was still dashing through the halls, towards the cabin. He cursed under his breath.

"Hey, you!" he yelled at a crewman, passing them his radio, "Get someone who knows what they're doin' down to Transporter Room 1 but tell 'em not ta touch _anythin' _till I say so." The young man saluted and Scotty kept going. The doors to the bridge flew open before him and he almost stopped in his tracks. Advancing more slowly into the bridge, he stared at the very large, very malevolent-looking face that was strewn across the front screen. He'd have thought he would have woken up by now. Usually when his dreams reached this level of 'oh no', he woke up.

Chekov and Sulu looked decidedly relieved to see the Chief Engineer, and both stared at him expectantly, as if they thought he knew how to fix the situation. _Jings, am I glad I'm not the permanent Captain around here_, he thought. Reluctantly, he strode up to The Chair and gingerly sat himself down. He brought his eyes up to stare at the face. It looked human, excepting the deep vertical crease down his forehead and the smaller ones that crossed above his eyebrows. His eyes flashed in a rather cliché way, and his tangled, brown mane of hair seemed to float about his shoulders as if he were standing in the midst of an ancient storm. He looked fierce, royally peeved, and extremely ready to blow the Enterprise back to the Big Bang.

Scotty wondered who was supposed to say something first. The scary man seemed content to simply glare. Scotty took a second to give the offensive ship a once-over on the portside screen. He'd never seen anything quite like it; kind of clunky-looking, a wheezer of a ship, but also heavy-duty. He figured it would be able to take a few hits. It didn't _look _very sneaky, so it must have had a good cloaking device to be able to sit there undetected by the Enterprise. He wondered if its shielding technology was up to snuff. His eyes came back to the screen, where the man was still sitting there intimidating him. The silence ate at Scotty's ears.

"I'm Montgomery Scott, Commandin' Officer aboard this vessel," he tried, words tasting foreign in his mouth. "I trust we can come to an accord before ya blow another hole in my ship." He hoped he hadn't sounded as bitter as he felt. A quick glance at the charts on his left side told him that the Enterprise's port-side Bussard collector (including the ramscoop, which he'd _just_ fixed), was now virtually worthless, thanks to the first shot that had hit them.

"Where is the Captain?" asked the man, his voice just about as intimidating as his visage, and in a tone that clearly said _I am loud and in a hurry, you puny Earth human._

"Not available at the moment. I'm all ye get." The man fixed him with a glare that would haunt his memory for weeks. It wasn't as if the aesthetics of the sheer ferocious look of it was all that unforgettable; it was the _rage_ behind it. Scotty felt a bit like cowering behind the console, away from the glare of someone that was obviously feeling some unfathomable wrath. The adrenaline from the transporter room situation hadn't faded away in the least, so sitting here, feeling like a bug under a magnifying glass poised to incinerate him, his nerves were finding it difficult to become any more jangled than they already were, and for this he was grateful.

"Your Captain is down on the surface with the Vulcan and the woman?"

"As it happens," he replied, wondering a bit why Bones had been left out. "What is it ye want, Captain…?" He raised his eyebrows, indicating he wanted the guy's name.

"I understand you've managed to transport some… people into your ship?" the man demanded, effectively avoiding answering either of Scotty's questions. _Ahaha_, thought Scotty to himself. This guy didn't want whoever the Orions were keeping down there to be confiscated. They had probably screwed up the airwaves between the Enterprise and the planetoid as soon as the Orions had alerted them that someone was trying to steal their merchandise… which is why the transporter had given him a mess of human Jell-O.

"Aye," he said. The man stared at him expectantly, as if waiting for something. A hint of confusion flashed across his face, which looked astonishingly out of place.

" 'Aye' means 'yes'," added Scotty. Comprehension, and then annoyance, graced the man's face.

"Charming. You are going to beam them over to my ship, Commanding Officer Scott." The engineer began to seriously wish he'd had more training in dealing with situations like this. He had no idea what to say.

"You'll forgive me if I feel that wouldn't be in their best interests," he tried.

"It would be in _your_ best interests, trust me."

Scotty took another look at the man's ship on the console. With a pang, he realized that it wasn't a clunky old ship like he'd originally thought; it was a warship. A sturdy one. A weird-looking, sturdy, much-bigger-than-he'd-originally-thought warship. Still, it did look a wee bit outdated. Maybe the shields of the Enterprise could withstand some pounding. But with their shields up, they couldn't transport Kirk and the others to safety. If they were even still alive.

"Keptin, zey are locking on us, sir!"

"I'm not the Captain, lad. Mister," he said, leaning towards the viewscreen, putting on his best nonchalant, Kirk-like expression. "You are aware that you're assaultin' a Constitution-Class Starship from the Federation, aren't ye?" Having said that, he felt even more unqualified to be sitting there.

"Human, I don't care." He sounded dangerously exasperated. "If you resist, we'll fire another chroniton torpedo at you and this time we'll be aiming for the main engines. Make it easy, will you?"

"Chroniton?" He barley kept himself from yelping out the word. They had the trump card. He'd never encountered a ship with chroniton weapons. There was no way around the fact that chroniton torpedoes would waltz through the Enterprise's shields like it was a daisy field. _Bloody subspace_.

Scotty searched for words, a comeback, some way to save face, somewhere to pull courage or ideas from. However, nothing was hitting him except the baffled looks of Sulu and Chekov. Apparently they were in the same boat. Ship.

"You know what chroniton means, then," said the giant face.

"O' course I bloody well know what chroniton means, I'm an engineer. Well I suppose we won't be needin' these anymore, then," he said bitterly, completely removing their shields and feeling the riskiness of doing so banging in his rib cage. "No use wastin' energy, you've already managed to annihilate one of our Bussards."

Scotty could plainly see from the look on Sulu's face that the helmsman thought he'd gone completely bonkers. Maybe he had. But really, if they were going to be bombarded with chroniton torpedoes, what was the use? What he wasn't about to say was that having the shields down was one step closer to getting the real Captain, and the others, on board so they could get out of there. And so Scotty could give commanding duty to someone else.

Of course, this guy with his fancy chroniton technology probably knew the only thing holding the Enterprise back from warping out was the fact that half her staff was missing. So the man was also probably going to do everything in his power to keep the Enterprise's transporters from doing anything. He doubtless had some sort of scrambler or radiation field thrown up between the ship and the surface of the planetoid. The only way Scotty could see getting around this was shooting off the warship's scrambler. Which was a problem, because he hadn't the slightest as to its location, and the warship probably had its own shields up.

But he couldn't ask Chekov that, because that madman was boring holes in Scotty's face with his flashing eyes.

"Cripes," he muttered. The Enterprise, the refugees, all the crew aboard and the landing party were all doomed because he had no idea what to do.

_"Hello there,"_ said a familiar voice. If Scotty wasn't mistaken, it was, in fact, the voice of the apparently absent Jim Kirk. He tried not to look around wildly. He grabbed for his radio, but remembered he'd left it with the crewman. Looking back at the screen, the man was turned to the side, something else having caught his eye.

_"I'm Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise, and also of the Orion vessel that we've recently absconded."_

"What?" Scotty muttered to himself. He glanced at the radar screen and, sure enough, the Orion ship that had been down on the surface was now drifting away, well out of the atmosphere, almost on the other side of the planetoid. That must mean they were all ok; they'd taken the ship, lifted off, and were now hailing the warship, which Scotty was hearing through the viewscreen.

_"My crew is safely aboard this vessel. We left the others down on the surface. This is a Federal order to stand down, under penalty of-"_

The man on the viewscreen let out a bellow of fury that drowned out the rest of Kirk's words. His face disappeared as the screen went blank, and then was replaced with a grandiose view of the planetoid, and the warship, which was (Scotty couldn't believe it) maneuvering away from them. On the far horizon, the Orion ship had just disappeared to the other side of the rocky mass, and… the warship was going after it.

Straight through the radiation field they'd thrown between the planetoid's surface and the Enterprise. If Scotty wasn't mistaken, projected radiation fields could only be kept up by a stationary-

_"Scotty! Come in!"_ Sulu jumped and grabbed at his radio – Kirk was now calling Scotty via the helmsman. Sulu tossed it to Scotty, who managed not to drop it.

"Captain!"

_" I lied, everyone else is on the surface. I need to beam off this thing."_

"Yes. Yes you do." Scotty reached over and spoke into the intercom. "Transport Room 1, see if you can get Kirk off that vessel."

"Sir, zey are shooting!" yelled Chekov, and Scotty whirled to see the viewscreen; the warship had launched a torpedo at the Orion ship.

"Captain," he said to his radio, "brace yourself. We're tryin' ta lock on…" he flinched as he watched the torpedo smash into the ship, hoping Kirk hadn't been on that deck. "Kirk?" The warship fired another missile, this one heading straight for the engine of the Orion vessel.

_"Anytime, Scotty. What's the-"_ Kirk's signal was cut dead.

Scotty wondered if Kirk was in a transporter buffer, had been incinerated, or had been affected by radiation on his way over and had turned into hamburger. Heart in his throat, he accessed the intercom.

"Transporter Room 1, what's goin' on?"

_"That was timely."_ Kirk on Sulu's radio. Kirk was ok. He was in the Enterprise. The radiation field was gone. Transport to the surface was possible.

"Room 1, get the rest off that rock immediately," he said tiredly, although Kirk had probably already ordered that.

_"Yes sir."_

"Kirk, let's trade places."

**-----}{-----**

Kirk spared precious seconds sticking in the transport room to see if the rest would make it back ok. They did, and McCoy had decided to beam up as well, though he'd stated that he would rather stay down in the sweltering heat than ever use another transporter. Kirk wasn't entirely clear on what had happened to McCoy and the people he'd tried to beam up with, but it can't have been pleasant.

When he burst into the bridge, Scotty was standing by the door, waiting.

"I've never been so happy ta see yer ugly mug, Captain. Woa," he said, surprised, "and yer a lot uglier than when I last saw ye." Kirk had acquired some character, as they all had, down fighting with the Orions. Thankfully there had only been five of the green beings.

"Love you too, Scotty. So what's going on?" The Chief Engineer followed him into the bridge, pointing at the viewscreen.

"That's the warship with Captain Nasty on it. It has chroniton technology, means our shields are useless. And-" The Orion vessel, under Captain Nasty's duress, finally exploded. "And now he'll be makin' his way back over here to bother us, no doubt."

"Right. Let's warp out."

"Ah, ok, but he's destroyed our portside Bussard."

"… And…"

"And I know I'm a miracle worker but that doesnae mean I'm a magician." In the viewscreen, the warship was ponderously turning around, starting to point back in their direction. Kirk turned and looked Scotty square in the face.

"Can we safely warp 8? I _just _want to get us out of here." Scotty took a breath.

"Yes…"

"Great." Kirk strode to The Chair and sat himself down. "Sulu, get us out of here."

"I think," Scotty finished quietly, though Kirk still caught it. The engineer's face was troubled, eyes following the path his hand was making as it traced the support ridge. What worried Scott worried Kirk. But what worried the Captain most at the moment was that chroniton torpedo being lowered from the maw of that warship, and he gripped the arms of his chair, praying the remaining nacelle had enough guts in it to move them in time.

**-----}{-----**


End file.
